Mar 22, 2013

Eight simple rules for not being a dick on Twitter, or: what to do when feminists are WRONG

1. Assume that people are competent, intelligent and are trying
to do the right thing. And I don’t mean “pay lip service to that assumption”, I
mean really live that belief.

2. When you see something that still seems offensive to you, do
this: smile, then read it out loud. Seriously, try it. Because it may be that you
got it wrong, that the tone didn’t come across, that you’re not familiar with
this person’s dry sense of humour: a bunch of stuff. If it is capable of being
construed ironically or sarcastically or as a joke, that’s probably how it was
meant.

3. Additionally, assume that you’ve misunderstood. Always. If
you see something you don’t agree with, that seems profoundly wrong and completely
illogical, there is about an 80% real-life chance that it’s you who’s not getting
it. Your first approach in any communication situation should be to ask a
question…

4. …but this question should never – ever – contain any of the
following: “um”, “has it occurred to you that”, “don’t you realise how”, “actually”,
“excuse me”, or any other passive aggressive patronising self-righteous
bullshit. If it doesn’t start with one of the 5 W’s, you’re being an asshole.

5. On twitter, or on a blog you’re not familiar with, click on
the person’s name and have a little rootle

round their other writings before
responding. Are the obviously on your side? A good person? Generally with the
angels? Then consider leaving them alone. If they used (what you think is) the
wrong word or said something you seriously think is un-feminist, there are
plenty of people out there less evolved than you, and I promise you they’ve
already let that person know their displeasure, oh yes.

6. Don’t join mobs. For fuck’s sweetest honey oozing sake, don’t
fucking do it. You see someone telling someone off on Twitter? Great. That
means that person has been told off. Your contribution is no longer necessary.
The good deed has been done. Pat yourself on the back for having had the
correct instinct & go make a cup of tea.

7. Don’t incite mobs. The next person I catch suggestively @
tweeting an offensive article/tweet into someone else’s stream, implicitly or
explicitly inviting them to go & get medieval on the offending ass, is
going to get a smack, they really are. What are you, twelve? Jesus.

8. Above all, nomero uno, the Rule Supreme of Feminism, this is
it, genuine 100% 24 carat wisdom: ask yourself if you could be wrong. No matter
how expert, how well versed, how experienced you are, how much more lived
experience you think you have than this other person who is pissing you off,
force yourself to stop, breathe in, and think for just a second: could they be
right and I, wrong? Or maybe they could just have a point, if I follow Rule 1?

Feminism isn't an exact science, which means nobody – not Judith
Butler, not Luce Irigaray, not Caytlin Moran, not Laurie Penny, nobody – has got
it 100% figured out. Everything is up for debate and negotiation, and if you
truly believe it’s not, then you need to join a religion and not a social
justice movement, mmkay?

In fact if feminism were an exact science, you’d be in even
more of a pickle, because then you’d be compelled by professional standards to
evaluate new arguments brought to you, rather than just thinking of the most
sarcastic way of knocking them down.

I actually try to apply that “scientific” approach myself –
taking each new argument as if it might actually be right & going from
there. Here’s a case study: last week, people in my timeline were freaking out
that Richard Dawkins said that a baby is like a pig and only foetal pain stands
between a woman and the right to abortion.

Now, abortion, as some people will know, is my baby (see
what I did there?) – I can quote law details from like 10 different countries,
statistics from all over the world, abortion rates, studies, services,
educational projects, Nadine Dorries scandals… In fact it just so happened that
I accidentally ended up lecturing the very same Richard Dawkins about it the following
weekend. But.

I went to his timeline. I read the whole of his argument. I
thought seriously about whether the discovery of foetal pain would change my
mind about the subject of abortion on demand at any stage in pregnancy
(probably not, but it was an interesting thought experiment). I saw how many
people were already piling on on him… And I decided not to get excited about
it.

Did that make a difference in the world? Nuh-uh. But would
being the 100th person tweeting The Dawk to tell him what a bellend
he is have made a difference in the world? Nope.

What’s true of someone like Richard Dawkins is much more
true of some random feminist on Twitter who is probably really doing her very
best to be in the movement in the most productive way she can. In the movement
you don’t own, and your oh-so-enlightened, holier-than-thou friends don’t own,
and I don’t own and she doesn’t own and that’s what’s so damn great about it.

Tl;dr version: if you don’t want to have a lot of
in-fighting in feminism, don’t start any fucking fights.

So, does any of this mean I'm the Zen grand Master and never get into online spats? Like hell it does. Sometimes I get my feelings hurt & things run away from me. Sometimes I fail at applying the rules. Sometimes I'm having a bad day. But I've had more productive discussions with people on Facebook and Twitter than I've had rows, and I'd like to see that ratio continue to improve. Also, I'm fed the FUCK up with the self righteous yelling & screaming, and I felt like I had to do something constructive about it or I'd explode.

1. Don't insult/encourage others to insult the person saying the thing you don't like/don't agree with, even if you dislike them. Engage/criticise the sentiment or idea that you don't like/agree with.

If the person is just having a bad day/worded something badly, they are more likely to see your point if you don't start off by calling them a ****. If they are actually speaking in bad faith/being an insensitive ass, they are unlikely to listen to you even if you insult them. So why grandstand?

Which leads me to

2. If you want to debate issues, don't grandstand. If you want to use Twitter to show off how amazing wonderful and perfect you are as a feminist, that's fine. But don't dress it up as an attempt at "debate".